Overdubs were applied and mixing took place at Morgan Studios with Douglas Smith and Dave Robinson overseeing the process.

– Simon King[3]The lyrics were written by Robert Calvert and he sang the lead vocal on the original live recording.

– Douglas Smith[5]The lyrics are a send-up of space travel, inspired by the Alfred Jarry essay How to Construct a Time Machine which Calvert interpreted as a description of how to build a bicycle: I read this essay by Alfred Jarrey [sic] called, "How to Construct a Time Machine", and I noticed something which I don't think anyone else has thought of because I've never seen any criticism of the piece to suggest this.

A lot of notable French intellectuals formed an academy around the basic idea of coming up with theories to explain the exceptions to the Laws of the Universe, people like Ionesco the playwright.

However, the group felt ill at ease at the prospect of miming a performance in front of a studio audience who didn't represent their following, so a compromise was reached with the BBC recording the band performing live at Dunstable Civic Hall on 7 July 1972, this clip being shown with the single version dubbed over it.

A version was recorded at Maida Vale Studios, London on 2 August 1972 for broadcast on the Johnnie Walker show on the 14th, "Brainstorm" also being part of the session.

[18] The song was also recorded live at the Paris Cinema, London on 28 September 1972 as part of the hour-long In Concert series broadcast.

On 14 November 2019, the group recorded a session for Marc Riley's BBC Radio 6 Music show, playing "65 Million Years Ago", "Last Man on Earth", "Spirit of the Age" and "Silver Machine".

Some live versions of the song on which Lemmy appeared include The Friday Rock Show Sessions from the Reading Festival 24 August 1986 and Motörhead's Stone Deaf Forever!

Receiving criticism over the release, Brock defended their actions: "It was only done as a tenth anniversary thing, and wasn't supposed to come out just as a picture disc.

"[20] In addition to the single release, the record company included it on the Choose Your Masques album, leaving Marion Lloyd-Langton to complain: "[Huw and I] actually had three tracks for the Masques album, but RCA insisted that Silver Machine went on, so the third track was dropped; pity about that.

The song has been used for two different UK television advertising campaigns: Mazda cars in 2000 and Red Square alcopops in 2004 (preview[permanent dead link‍]).